


Life During Wartime

by Aramley



Category: Thick of It (BBC), West Wing
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-29
Updated: 2010-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The improbable friendship of CJ Cregg and Malcolm Tucker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life During Wartime

The first state visit to the UK comes when she's still finding her feet, and when they tell her that she'll be liaising with Number Ten's Director of Communications, Malcolm Tucker, she has to admit that she doesn't actually know who that is.

"Oh, Malcolm's alright," says the young aide leading her through the cramped maze of Number Ten. "Just, you know, no sudden movements."

There isn't enough time to ask for an explanation of that cryptic and slightly unsettling remark before she's being ushered through a dark wood door, and the man she supposes must be Malcolm Tucker is coming towards her – grey-haired but probably younger than he looks, whipcord lean in his dark suit.

"CJ, it's a pleasure," he says, and okay, so, he's Scottish. She's always loved the accent.

"Likewise," she says, smiling, shaking the hand he offers her – very thin, cool, and dry.

He offers her a seat and she takes it as he settles behind his big, oak desk. You could fit the whole of Number Ten into one wing of the White House, but somehow his office is bigger than hers, and she tells him so.

"Well, you know what they say," he says, with a shrug and a wry twist of his mouth that might be a smile. "Oh, by the way, I read the draft of your guy's speech for the dinner tonight. That's strong stuff, yeah."

"Thanks," CJ says. "I'll pass that along."

"Yeah, thing is," he says, rubbing a hand across his chin. She hears the scrape of stubble. "Thing is, we were wondering if you could maybe tone it down a bit."

She stares at him. "Tone it down."

"Yeah," he says. "See, your guy gets up there and talks about fucking macroeconomic destabilisation or some bollocks and the PM's got to follow by whipping out _his_ wee intellectual cock and waving it about a bit. And nobody wants to see that, darling, it's fucking tragic, understand?"

"Wait," CJ says. "You want us to dumb our president down so that _your guy_ doesn't look bad?"

"_Dumb down_, that's such a strong way of putting it, you know," Malcolm says, mock-sweetly. "I'm just saying maybe use a few less -"

"- big words?"

He grins, then, sharklike. "You'll go far."

-

"CJ Cregg," Malcolm says, cornering her after the dinner. "Don't you look marvellous."

She smoothes down the skirt of her Versace, and says, dryly, "Thanks. You're looking very dapper yourself."

Malcolm shrugs, sharp-shouldered in his tuxedo. "Oh, hey," he says, "I liked that speech. That was good. I liked how every word was four syllables or less."

"Toby Ziegler took it as a personal challenge," says CJ. "If you look carefully at the text there's an acrostic that says 'screw the English'."

He smiles at her, the smile a slash in his thin face, and she thinks that there's something about him that reminds her of Toby, that quality of concentrated quiet menace. "It's just as well I'm Scottish then, isn't it?"

"Just as well," she says. For the first time she realises that he's _tall_. If she kicked off her shoes they'd be eye-to-eye.

"Well, then," he says, nodding back at the table she's just come from, where four white-haired peers of the realm don't seem to have noticed her absence. "I'll leave you to your scintillating company."

"Oh, and by the way," he says, before he goes, winking as he adds, "when you get back to Washington, tell that damp cuntrag Josh Lyman hello from me, yeah?"

-

"Hey," Josh says, leaning in her office door. "Welcome back. How was England?"

"Very," she hesitates, "English."

"I hear that," Josh says.

"Malcolm Tucker says hi, by the way."

Josh's face crumples. "Malcolm - Malcolm _Tucker_? Says _hi_?"

"Yeah," says CJ. "What - Josh, are you _sweating_?"

"No," Josh says, turning away. "No, I just gotta go, uh, hide under my desk now. Donna!"

-

"Hey," she says to Danny, when he's hanging around her office after briefing, "you worked in England for a while, right?"

"Yeah, six months," Danny says. "Why?"

"You ever meet a guy called Malcolm Tucker?"

Danny laughs. "The spin guy? No, never met him. _Heard_ of him. Horror stories, legends, myths. Tales to chill the blood and strike fear into the soul. Why?"

"Nothing," CJ says, shrugging. "I met him on the state visit."

"Whoa," Danny says, sounding genuinely awed. "That's like meeting the godfather. I heard he once sent dead fish to a member of parliament."

"That was Josh, and Congress," says CJ.

"No," says Danny. "This Member of Parliament who voted against the party whip, he used to keep koi carp, you know, those big, expensive fish. And he walks into his office one day and there's his koi carp sitting in a bucket on his desk. All of 'em gutted."

"There's no way that's true," says CJ. "I mean. Is there?"

Danny just shrugs. "Look out for the little guy," he says, nodding towards the goldfish bowl.

-

There's no pause for reflection in politics, and she mostly forgets about Malcolm Tucker until Lord John Marbury walks into the White House exuding the heady vapours of eight hundred years of English aristocracy and forty-year malt, and tries to palm her ass as he passes her in the hall.

There's not exactly an international mailing list for press secretaries, but it's easy enough to track down his address.

_How do you solve a problem like Lord John Marbury?_ she sends, before she can think better of it.

Malcolm replies, with eerie rapidity, _you tell that fucking inbred fucking lush that Malcolm Tucker's powers transcend borders and oceans and fucking time and space; that I will come over there and personally pioneer the procedure to medically remove his fucking bell-end via his eyesockets if he so much as fucking LOOKS at a woman while he's there. Jesus Christ. _

"Oh, by the way," CJ says, as Lord John veers towards her, whisky on his breath. "Malcolm Tucker sends his regards."

She sees him physically recoil; he actually leans backwards. "Ah," he says. "Well. Ha-ha. Good old Malcolm."

CJ smiles. "Good old Malcolm."

-

The MS breaks, and it's awful, and she stands in the press room and it feels like she's just making it worse, and afterwards she goes into her office and shuts the door and doesn't ever, not once, cry.

And one day Agent Butterfield comes in with an envelope stamped with the seal of Number Ten Downing Street, saying, "CJ, do you know a man called Malcolm Tucker?"

The postcard in the envelope is one of those quintessential British things, telephone-box red printed with the very stiff-upper-lip KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, except that someone (Malcolm) has scrawled out the CARRY ON with two vicious strokes of black marker and written FUCK THE CUNTS there instead. The space for a message on the back is blank.

"The mailroom clerks were concerned by the obscene language," Ron says. "Does this seem like the kind of thing he'd do?"

CJ laughs. "Yes," she says, turning the card over in her hands. "Absolutely, yes."

-

The night of the election the last person she's expecting to hear from is Malcolm, but her cell rings with an unidentified number and she picks up for once, and immediately there's his scratchy voice saying, brightly, "CJ, how's life in the fucking colonies?"

"Malcolm," she says, trying to sound annoyed. Failing, because tonight her President kicked _ass_. "How did you get this number?"

"Never mind my infinite fucking powers. I saw that debate thing," he says. "That guy, what was his name - Bartok? - he was quite good, you know, I liked him. Very presidential."

"Thanks," she says. She'd roll her eyes if she thought it would come across.

"Of course, helped that the opposition guy's got about as much up there as a fucking retarded dead gerbil," he says, "but hey, it's your land of opportunity."

"God bless America," CJ says. "Where even a man with the mental capacity of a deceased domesticated rodent can dream the dream of the presidency."

"That's good," says Malcolm, making a sound that might be a laugh. "You ought to put that on your dollar bills."

"I'll take it to Josh first thing," she promises, smiling.

-

The G8 summit is going so well it's almost scary, right up until the British Prime Minister is picked up on-mic making a profoundly inappropriate remark to the wife of the Japanese PM and compounds the general disaster of the day by tripping face-first into a bowl of custard at dinner, and then it becomes truly terrifying.

"Tom," Malcolm is screaming into his cell, "you listen to me you fucking - if you run with this wife thing - which, _by the fucking way_, you cannot in good faith without having listened to the fucking tape, which I know for a _fact_ that you - listen, son, I am going to come over to that fucking fascist propaganda-machine you call a newspaper and I'm going make you eat the PCC code clause by fucking clause until you _shit_ journalistic integrity - don't you fucking - that little shite-hawk just fucking hung up on me."

"Shite-hawk," CJ says, but Malcolm is already dialling the next number.

Malcolm in full fight mode is an astonishing thing. She can't imagine how she ever thought to compare him to Toby.

"Look on the bright side," CJ says, when Malcolm hangs up again, pressing fingers against his eyesockets like if he can just shut his eyes tight enough, it will all go away. "Your guy's got a great second career in slapstick."

There is a vein on Malcolm's forehead that makes her think he really ought to see a doctor, because the things it suggests about his blood pressure can't be good. He gives her a look of burning, but impersonal hatred.

"Look," she offers. "You want some help with this?"

"_Your_ fuckin' help," Malcolm spits, venomous. "No fucking thank you. Jesus Christ. I've seen _your_ best work. We're not at the fucking wrist-slitting portion of tonight's entertainment quite yet."

He's talking about the MS. The son of a bitch. She stands up and puts on her jacket and leaves, and if the press tent had had a door, she still wouldn't have given him the satisfaction of hearing her slam it.

An hour later she walks back in holding a BBC tape containing the only copy of the career-ending joke made by the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Malcolm is sitting in a plastic chair, staring into middle distance or the future or hell, hunched unnaturally, his cellphone clutched white-knuckled in one hand and in the other, incongruously, an unpeeled satsuma. CJ clears her throat and he looks up. He spots the tape instantly.

He says, hoarsely, "Is that -"

"It is," she says, and loves his look of haggard bewilderment.

"Claudia Jean," he says, slow, sincere, "I could fucking kiss you."

"I'll settle for a drink," she says, and tosses him the tape.

-

The hotel bar is full of journalists, and CJ suggests that they decamp to her suite and raid the mini-bar. It doesn't occur to her until they're in the elevator that she's invited him _back to her hotel room_, a man who wears a wedding ring, but the easy way he accepted the offer (saying, "Hope you've got something a wee bit stronger than your fucking gnat's-piss poor American excuse for beer,") and the fact that it's Malcolm, who she suspects would not be shy to decline an offer, makes her easier.

They watch the news together, custard story running second, CJ on the bed with her shoes kicked off and Malcolm in the armchair. In a cursory nod to relaxation, he has removed his jacket.

"It could be worse," CJ says. "The President once rode his bicycle into a tree."

Malcolm snorts an approximation of laughter and knocks back his mini-bar vodka. "If the day ends and the worst thing the fucking PM's done is get a faceful of custard, that's a good day. That's a fucking success story. Tell me, 'cause fuck knows I've wondered, what's it like to have a leader who can -"

"- speak unprompted in complete sentences?"

"Amongst other things," Malcolm says, "including but certainly not limited to finding his own dick with both hands and a fuckin' searchlight."

CJ considers, and settles for, "It presents its own, unique challenges."

-

Later, on her reckless third beer and the clock inching past midnight, she says, "Is it true you once left a bucket of gutted koi carp on a member of Parliament's desk?"

Malcolm, thumbs working over his phone in a way that suggests someone on the other end is receiving a blistering textual assault, does that thing that passes for his laughter again. "Where did _you_ get to fucking hear about that?"

"I have my sources," she says, and takes another drag of her mini-bar beer.

"People exaggerate," he says, shrugging. "They weren't actually _his_ koi carp. And I certainly didn't gut them myself. I'm an ideas man, you know, Jamie's your go-to-guy for all that fucking carry-out bollocks."

She thinks about asking who Jamie is, but decides that she probably doesn't want to know.

"Why is Josh Lyman terrified of you?" she asks, instead.

Malcolm sighs, and reaches for another tiny vodka. "That," he says, with emphasis, "is a very old, very boring story, with absolutely no fish-guts in it at all."

"Come on," says CJ. "What, is it _that bad_?"

"Jesus Christ," Malcolm says, "what are you, a fucking Press Secretary or a fucking hack in disguise? I've got a fucking appendix scar too if you'd like me to whip that out for an airing."

"Don't get snippy with me, pal," CJ says, kicking at his calf with her stockinged foot. "I saved your ass today. You owe me."

"Owe you," Malcolm says, with a sneer. "I was having an off day. Owe _you_. Fuck me. Excuse me while I go into the bathroom and fucking hang myself with the fucking shower curtain."

"However you get your kicks," says CJ. She sighs. "I should've kept the tape. That's prime blackmail material right there. It's just as well for you that I'm a nice person."

"Piece of advice for you, darlin'," he says. He fixes her with a sharp, shadowed look. "Nice gets you precisely fucking nowhere in this game. This is fucking life during wartime."

She tilts her beer bottle between them. "And we're the soldiers in this analogy?"

"Nah," Malcolm says. "You and me, we're more like the poor fucks who have to scurry out and pick up the bits when those -" he waves a bony hand at the politicians on the television "- those stupid bastards get themselves fucking blown to buggery."

CJ snorts. "You have a very jaundiced view of politics, you know that?"

"Christ," says Malcolm, raising his eyebrows at her. "You're not a fucking idealist, are you?"

-

"CJ, c'mere," Danny calls, the next day, as she passes him outside the press tent.

"Danny," she sighs, exasperated, because the day's barely started and they're already running seven minutes behind schedule. "Wait for the briefing."

"CJ," he says, again. "You don't want me to ask this question at the briefing. C'mere."

"Gee, Danny," CJ says, irritated, as she follows him away from the press pack, "try being a little _less_ respectful, will ya? Next time why don't you just whistle and -"

"So I heard you had Malcolm Tucker in your hotel room last night," Danny says, as soon as they're out of earshot.

CJ stops, stares at him. Hisses, "_Excuse_ me?"

"You heard," Danny says, shoulders squared.

She is coldly, blackly furious. If she were Malcolm Tucker – but she's not, she's CJ Cregg, and she enjoys every extra inch she has on Danny when she leans in and says, sweetly enough, "Are you asking this question in a professional or a personal capacity? Because I promise you, in either of those roles the question of whom I do and do _not_ choose to bring into my bedroom is absolutely none of _your_ concern."

Danny shrugs like it's nothing, but his mouth is a soft, hurt line. "I'm just telling you what I heard. Common courtesy, CJ."

She waits a beat before she says, "You're a real son of a bitch, Danny," and walks away.

-

When the President shakes the hand of the Prime Minister on the steps of the White House, Malcolm is his shadow, cast behind and to the right, watching the carefully stage-managed proceedings like a thin, grey, faintly malevolent hawk.

The bilateral is scheduled for an hour, but Malcolm's already leaked to the press that it's just forty minutes so the British press can shit their trousers (Malcolm's words) over the robust health of the special relationship, and that leaves CJ ushering Malcolm around the West Wing, telling interesting stories about the bits she remembers and making things up about the bits she doesn't.

Halfway through the ten-cent tour Malcolm's cell rings.

"Excuse me," he says, glancing at the screen. "I've got to take this."

There are storm-clouds in his expression. "Use my office," she says, ushering him in. She shuts the door behind but West Wing doors have never been Malcolm-tested, and the murmur of his voice rises like rolling thunder, breaking with, "you MASSIVE FUCKING _CUNT_," as the bullpen falls into deathly, awed silence.

"Hey," Toby says, passing, "you want to ask your friend to maybe tone the language down a little?"

CJ glances at the door, behind which Malcolm is enumerating the various obscene things he intends to do with the severed head of the person on the other end of the line.

She looks back at Toby. "Do _you_ want to?"

The office door opens suddenly, Malcolm delivering a calmer, almost amused, "Jesus, why can't the fat fuck just die in his fucking sleep, eh?" by way of goodbye before he hangs up.

"Sorry about that," he says, with a smile, shrugging, and offers as explanation, "Domestic affairs."

"Toby, this is Malcolm Tucker," says CJ. "Malcolm, Toby Ziegler, Director of Communications."

"Pleasure's all mine," says Malcolm.

Toby smiles, says, "Probably," and CJ remembers the four-syllable speech.

Malcolm's smile narrows into something razor-edged, and CJ's about to stage an intervention when the phone starts ringing again and he says, "Go ahead, I'll catch you up when I've finished bending this twat's ear so far back with any luck his fucking chinless empty head will just fucking snap off and roll away," and disappears back into the office.

After a moment, Toby says, "Are you wearing perfume?"

"Go to hell," says CJ, wearily, and turns away.

-

Sam's office is empty, and Josh's door is shut, although the connection between the two doesn't become apparent until she swings open the door of Josh's office straight into Sam, who yelps like a girl.

"What is this, a private party?" CJ says, looking round at Sam, and Donna, and Josh.

"Just talking about work," Josh says, at the same time Sam admits, "We're hiding."

CJ levels him a look. "Hiding?"

"From Malcolm Tucker."

"Sam, you fold like a wet napkin," Josh complains. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Hiding from Malcolm," CJ echoes. "The White House Deputy Chief of Staff and the Deputy Director of Communications are _hiding_ from a single Scotsman."

"One very loud, very threatening Scotsman," says Sam. "And I wouldn't underestimate the Scottish, CJ. I've seen _Braveheart_."

"Well," CJ sighs, "I guess we know how they managed to burn the place down last time."

"I think he's cute," says Donna.

"_Cute_," Josh says, looking up in despair. "Did you all hear that? She thinks he's _cute_."

"It's the accent," says Donna, matter-of-fact, sifting through files on Josh's desk. She shrugs. "I've always been helplessly attracted to men with accents."

"You're fired, Donna," Josh says. "I'm serious, you're just – so fired."

These are America's best and brightest.

"You are all deranged," CJ says.

-

The meeting overruns by five minutes, much to Malcolm's delight and the President's dismay ("CJ," he says, _sotto voce_, "can it be possible that the country which produced Churchill also produced that man?"), and they're ten behind by the time they get to the rose garden for the press conference.

"Christ, look at that twat," Malcolm says, watching the PM's lacklustre performance on the monitor with weary resignation, arms crossed. "Honestly, the guy's got a brain the size of a fucking honeydew melon and he looks like he should be shitting into a bucket."

"Nobody looks good next to a Nobel Laureate," CJ says. "You shouldn't feel emasculated just 'cause my guy could kick your guy's intellectual ass."

Malcolm huffs. "If I hinged my fucking masculinity on the PM's job performance I'd have sliced my cock off and handed my bollocks in years ago."

Even the secret service agents glance sideways when Malcolm talks. Maybe they think he's being disrespectful. Maybe they just envy his vocabulary.

"Y'know, you have a real way with words," says CJ. "I can't imagine how you didn't go into speechwriting."

"Speechwriting," says Malcolm. "I don't know enough fucking four-syllable words."

CJ crooks a smile. "Just four-letter words."

"Aye," says Malcolm, with a grin. "Plenty of those."

-

While the President makes the official adieus in the Oval, CJ takes advantage of the columned near-privacy of the walk outside to kiss Malcolm goodbye – just a quick kiss to his cheek, lips brushing the corner of his mouth, dry and the faint scratch of stubble. When she draws back he gives her a cool, shuttered look. But he's not screaming at her, and she thinks that's something.

"See you around, soldier," she says.

He nods, relaxing a fraction. "Camp David in the autumn, yeah?"

"If you make it that far," CJ teases.

"Don't you fucking worry about us," Malcolm promises. He winks. "You think we're bad, you should see the fucking Opposition."

-

"You think that's, uh, appropriate for a West Wing office?" Toby says, later, and it takes her a minute to work out that he's talking about the postcard, KEEP CALM AND FUCK THE CUNTS, propped up on her desk.

CJ smiles. "Not even a little bit."


End file.
